


don't be predictable

by Skyuni123



Series: a trio of victors and lovers [1]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Biting, Enemies to Lovers, Episode: s10e12 The Doctor Falls, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Humor, Love/Hate, M/M, Multi, Post-Episode: s10e12 The Doctor Falls, Sass, basically im keen on the master and missy getting together dont hate me, im very bi and this episode tickled me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 06:57:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11374956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skyuni123/pseuds/Skyuni123
Summary: No death. No regeneration. He’s still living.However, so are the two Masters. Master and Missy. A matched set. Gods, what has he gotten himself into?“We could travel together.” He suggests, knowing that they’ll probably both disagree.(To his surprise, they don't.)





	1. a nice cup of tea

And so, they save the world.

 

It’s what they always do, and with the power of _three_ Timelord brains (technically two, considering one of them is just a reluctant younger self who puts in the bare minimum of effort), they manage to put an end to the Cybermen and vanquish them from the ship forever. 

Bill… well, she’s Bill. Just, not the same as before. She bids them farewell with a “I’ll call you!” and takes off into time and space with her girlfriend by her side.

Nardole is alive and in love with one of the colonists. 

 

It’s a job well done, if the Doctor says so himself. 

 

No death. No regeneration. He’s still living.  

However, so are the two Masters. Master and Missy. A matched set. Gods, what has he gotten himself into?

 

“We could travel together.” He suggests, knowing that they’ll probably both disagree. As much as he loathes the Master, loathes  _ them,  _ he loves them both as well. He has as long as he's known them. It’s a funny thing, the heart. (He is never going to admit it, even on his deathbed, though.)

 

“Baby, I’m not that kind of girl.” The Master drawls, scratching at his stubble with one hand. 

He  _ hates  _ him, but it’s about what he’d expected.

 

“Oh, do go on.” Missy urges, looking like she doesn’t really care about the outcome of this discussion. “What else are you going to do? Rebuild your TARDIS? Wallow in a field? Waste away in an elevator shaft?”

 

The Master’s TARDIS - stuck at the bottom of the spaceship - had been destroyed along with the Cybermen. The Doctor might have had something to do with it.

 

“Why are you trying to convince me?” The Master asks, turning to her. “You know the outcome of this. It’s exhausting, lady-me.”

 

“Don’t push it.” Says she, glaring ferociously at him. 

 

Well. The Doctor knew that they hadn’t exactly…  _ bonded… _ during their time at the farm, but he’d hoped that they’d at least become  _ civil.  _

Obviously, he was hoping too much.

“Yes, yes, stop fighting.” He says, much preferring when he only had to deal with one of them. “Either you come with me, or you wile away your regenerations in a tin can on the edge of a black hole. Which would you prefer?”

 

Grumbling, both of them make the smart decision to follow him. He doesn’t think it’s the  _ safest  _ idea to have two Masters in the TARDIS, but he’s not going to just abandon them both on some  _ rock.  _ He’s not completely heartless.

 

The Doctor wants to take them away to a secluded planet for a spell, just so they can get used to one another where potential lives won’t be at risk, but the TARDIS has other ideas and strands them on Califrax, near the end of their medieval era. 

 

“Come on, then.” He strides out the door without looking and ends up ankle-deep in a marsh.

 

From behind him, he can hear Missy chortling. Yes, well, this did have to happen on their first day out, didn’t it?

 

He turns back, glares at them and says, “Well, come along, then,” as though nothing even happened. 

 

They sigh, almost in unison (though he supposes that there’s probably a reason for that) and follow him out into the mud.

 

In hindsight, maybe he should have taken the mud as a _sign._ They could have had a nice cup of tea and a chat (though, he doesn’t really do ‘nice chats’) in one of the kitchens on the TARDIS and avoided all of this.  

The citizens of medieval era Califrax don’t like people trespassing in their sacred mud patch and resoundingly throw them all in jail. He spends a good ten minutes trying to sonic his way out of there before he remembers the sonic doesn’t work on wood.

 

“Well?” He demands, turning to face the others.

 

The Master has settled onto a pair of crates, feet propped high in the air, and Missy is leaning against the wall in the corner, looking out the room’s one window. Both of them look like they’re trying very hard not to laugh.

 

“You got us in here.” The Master shrugs. “Why don’t you find us a way out?”

 

“One of you could throw yourself out this window.” Missy taps the glass thoughtfully, “But it’s a bit of a drop. You’d just waste a regeneration and then where would we be?”

 

“So we’re stuck? Are those your answers?” He demands. He’d expected more of them, somehow. Even now.

 

“It’s your joyride, dearest.” Missy preens, and applies some lip gloss. He doesn’t even know where she found it. “Though I suspect the people knocking at the door might want to have a word.” 

 

In his distraction he’d failed to notice the sound of bolts drawing back from behind the door. “Yes, probably.” He says, too irritated to really care. Turning around again, he hisses, “what?!” to the people who’ve just opened the door. 

 

“You are the Doctor?” One of them asks. He has a spear. The Doctor really doesn’t like spears.

 

“ _ Yes,  _ as I was saying  _ before  _ you trapped us in here!”

 

“Come with us.” Two of them (who also have spears) grab him by his arms and try to drag him away. Usually, he’d go with them willingly because he’s generally fairly good at talking his way out of things, but he’s babysitting today.

 

(That’s what it feels like, anyway.)

 

“You two.” He says, whirling around and pointing an accusing finger at Missy, and then at the Master. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” 

 

The Master rolls his eyes. Missy, on the other hand, eyeballs him and sighs, very dramatically.

 

He supposes it’s as good an answer as any.


	2. damn the man is oblivious

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He growls under his breath, “Hedonist.”
> 
> “Narcissist.” She breathes back, and bites down hard on his bottom lip.

 

 

They’re alone together in a room that barely measures more than a couple of metres wide. It’s wood, devastatingly enough, and lit with candles. Outside, the sun is beginning to set. 

 

“So? Is this what you wanted?” The Master asks, coolly. “You know what is going to happen, so was this part of your plan? Stranding us in a room together?”

 

She can feel his eyes on her back and it nearly makes the hair stand up on the back of her neck. It’s a strange feeling, because she’s been where he’s been, so she’s seen this from the other angle too. “Believe it or not,  _ I  _ wasn’t the one who landed us here.”

 

“Huh.” He laughs disinterestedly, and there’s no humour in it. “I expected  _ more.” _

 

She turns around and sits on the crate opposite him, crossing one leg over the other. She detachedly notices that her boots are scuffed and covered with mud. They need a polish. “You expected  _ me  _ to have some grand escape scheme? I’m not making it that easy for you.”

 

“You don’t want to escape?” For the first time since she met him, he sounds  _ surprised.  _

 

She shrugs. “Not really. I don’t have a TARDIS and  _ he’s  _ got the best time machine the galaxy. It’s in my interest to stay.” 

 

“Yes…” He drawls, like nails on a chalkboard. “And you  _ love  _ him.” 

 

She looks at him sharply and raises an eyebrow. “And you’re saying you  _ don’t _ ? I’ve  _ been  _ you. I know.”

 

He waves a hand in the air. “We were friends. Nothing more. Just because  _ you  _ got sentimental doesn’t mean that I am.” 

 

Scoffing, she adjusts her position to look him right in the eyes and says, “Why, yes. Locking him in a cage for a year so you could make him watch you burn the world isn’t sentimental at all. Dying in his arms? Sacrificing yourself for him?  _ No,  _ none of those things are embarrassingly sentimental at all.”

 

“Don’t push it, honey..” He chortles and leans towards her. “At least I didn’t become  _ good  _ for him.” He puts a hand on her knee and she decides against removing it. He’s trying to intimidate her, which is, frankly, ridiculous.

 

“Well,  _ you will.”  _ There’s a beat of silence and she knows she’s clearly won this fight. There’s nothing he can do to counter her because she knows everything that is going to happen. It’s a recursive loop of a life and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

So, he settles back and grins at her with a look she’s sure would inspire tears in others. “Remember back on Gallifrey? How we’d run through the fields with him, and he’d tell us about how he wanted to save lives and help people, even then? He was so  _ good  _ even then.”

 

“Surprising, I know.” 

 

“Wouldn’t it be odd if he was bad, for once?” His gaze turns thoughtful,  but hums with malice. “I like that idea.” 

 

She can’t imagine it. Even though her past self might, there’s just something within the Doctor that inspires  _ greatness.  _ She wants to try for him, and she doesn’t care if it’s sentimental or not. Gods, she’s gotten soft. Her past regenerations would look at her in disgust. “You’d never make it happen.”

 

“But I’d  _ try.  _ Wouldn’t you like to see it happen? All three of us? Razing a city to the ground?” His voice is like honey, but his words drip with deceit. “Can’t you see it?”

 

She can. The flames, the screams, the  _ power,  _ all three of them.. _.  _ It’s seductive in the way that visions of power tend to be, but it still leaves her feeling vaguely sick to her stomach. “It wouldn’t last. Even if he was bad, you’d be at each other’s throats in days.”

 

“Ye of little faith.” His gaze holds hers for a moment too long and the grip on her knee tightens.

 

She turns away, eyes glittering in the candlelight. 

 

Their little game has gone on long enough. “No. I just know you. What villain has such a fixation on their enemy? It’s been thousands of years and you’re only still hanging around because you  _ like  _ it. The sparring, the contesting, you  _ enjoy  _ it. You would raze Gallifrey to the ground just to see him again.”

 

“You’re pushing your luck.”

 

Turning back to him and leaning ever closer she whispers, “There’s nothing you can do to me, dearest.” They might be in a room together, but they need each other. She can’t harm him because she'd wink out like a light, and he can’t harm her if he wants some form of job security in his future. They’re a stalemate, an impasse. The universe has  _ got  _ to hate this.

 

“Want to bet?”

 

And maybe if she was a different woman, and this was a different jail, and she wasn’t talking to her past self right now, she’d be scared by the husk in his voice. That being said, she’s not. She sighs, acts disinterested. “Oh, go on then. Try not to do anything  _ predictable.”  _

 

The kiss that comes is anything but. 

 

She’s known it was coming, has known it since she did it himself, so many years ago, but she’s still taken aback by the stubble against her cheeks and how  _ bruising  _ the kiss is. He  _ wants  _ this, has wanted it for longer than she could ever say. She’s certainly not complaining.

 

Pulling back, she purrs, “How long’s it been since poor little Lucy?”

 

“Too long.” He gasps, lips swollen, and she tuts, because it’s been even longer for her.

 

She grazes her teeth over the curve of his ear and he growls under his breath, “ _ Hedonist _ .”

 

“ _ Narcissist _ .” She breathes back, and bites down hard on his bottom lip.

 

 

 

Later, when they’re both bleeding, he from the lip and she from a bunch of nail marks along her back, the Doctor returns. 

“They’re lovely people, honestly, just a bit of a misunderstanding. I moved the TARDIS to a dry spot and had a chat with their gods and all is fin-” He takes in their dishevelled appearances and asks, very carefully. “Did you two have... a fight… while I was gone?”

 

“Something like that.” She says, and tosses her handkerchief to her other self. It’s the same one she used to clean off the knife when she’d stabbed him in the forest, what seems like so long ago.

 

The Master accepts it and dabs at his lip. “Yes. Something like that.” 

 

“Honestly, I leave you two alone for an hour at most, and you can’t keep your hands off each other! I met my previous selves and I didn’t get into pitched battles with them every…”

 

She tunes The Doctor out.

 

Love him, she’s sure both she and her past self do, but  _ damn,  _ the man is oblivious. 

**Author's Note:**

> hit me up on the [tumbs](http://villainousfilmmaker.tumblr.com)  
> or the [twits](http://twitter.com/skyuni123)


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